A Little Beyond Going the Distance
by amythis
Summary: Erin and Garrett after the ending of "Going the Distance" (2010). Rating mostly due to language.


"You're writing a blog? Erin, that's awesome!"  
"Yeah, but, Garrett, you can't tell anyone."

"Oo, a secret blog! That's even better."

"OK, I'm sending you the URL. Guard it with your life."

"Uh, isn't the whole point of a blog that you want people to read it and what's the word, monetize it?"  
"Oh, I want strangers to read it and click on the ads. I just don't want anyone to know it's me."

"Got it. I will read and review, anonymously. And I'll click on the ads."

"Thank you. Be kind."

"Of course. I love you."  
"I love you, too. OK, talk to you later."

After they hung up, he waited a minute before he went on the computer. He could've read her blog on his phone, but he wanted to kick it old school, with his laptop. She had indeed sent him the URL, so he of course immediately went to it. He wondered what she'd said about him. He assumed she must've said something. They'd gotten back together just last week, after months apart.

 _THE REUNION, CONTINUED_

 _M. stood frozen on the stairs, while we four adults were almost as much like statues, none of us sure what to do next. Then M. said, "Hey, G.'s here! Hi, G."_

 _"Hey, M. How are you?"_

 _"I'm fine. Is Mommy OK?"_

 _"I'm fine, Sweetheart," C. said, just out of M.'s sight, lying under her husband P., who had thankfully stopped dry-humping her. "Why don't you show G. your Bratz dolls?"_

 _C. hates the Bratz (she calls them hooker action figures), so that shows how desperate she was to get M. back upstairs. G. picked up on this and said, "Yeah, I hear you have quite the collection."_

 _"Yeah, come see." M. skipped back upstairs._

 _"Great." G. risked a glance at C. and P., who were waving him to go. Then he looked at me and I nodded. So we followed my niece to her room._

 _G. has incredible patience. It's one of the things I love about him. So he let M. show him not only the dolls but all their little accessories, which took awhile._

 _And then out of nowhere, M. asked, "G., are you staying with us again?"_

 _G.'s last two visits here were not too successful. I loved seeing him of course but he did not make a good impression on C. Admittedly, my sister is very difficult to impress, but G. and I having sex on her dining room table did not help. (At least she and P. were dressed last week, although it was no less embarrassing to walk in on.)_

 _"Me? No. I'm staying in a nice hotel."_

 _"A nice hotel?" I said._

 _"Yeah, it's got a great view of the Bay."_

 _"That sounds great."_

 _"Yeah, it's nice. And great."_

 _M. looked between me and G. She's only four but I wondered how much of this she was picking up on. Because she suddenly gave a big yawn and wanted me to tuck her in. So I did and then we told her good night. I turned out the light and G. shut the door behind us._

 _He whispered, "Would you like to see my great view in my nice hotel?"_

 _"That would be nice. And great," I whispered back._

 _"There's one problem."_

 _"I need a change of at least underwear?"  
"That problem is easily solved. I meant I'm scared to go back downstairs again."_

 _"I'm sure P. and C. are done by now. At least I hope."_

 _"I don't know, dry-humping can go on for hours."_

 _"Oh, really? Are you speaking from personal experience?"  
"Not recent personal experience."_

 _"Now I'm definitely taking a change of underwear."_

 _He laughed. "Good plan."_

 _I threw an extra shirt and a toothbrush into my overnight bag, too. I assumed it would just be overnight, although this was a Friday and he'd said he was staying through the weekend. We hadn't talked out where this was going. The B.R. concert wasn't the best place for conversation. All I knew was we were back together, although the terms and details weren't settled yet._

 _He put my bag on his shoulder. He makes little gentlemanly gestures like that, I now remembered. Nothing big and flashy, just sweet and sometimes romantic._

 _I picked up my purse and said, "OK, ready to run the gauntlet?"_

 _"Yeah, we'll just go quietly down the stairs so we don't wake M., and then tear out the front door as quick as we can."_

 _"Good plan."  
"But you have to go first because I'm going to have my hands over my eyes."_

 _"You think I don't have mental scars? I mean that was my sister and brother-in-law."  
"You don't have to be related to them to not want to see what I wish I could unsee."_

 _"OK, we'll both squint on the way downstairs."_

 _But it was fine. C. and P. were nowhere in sight. Maybe they'd snuck upstairs while we were in M.'s room, or maybe they were hiding in the kitchen. I didn't want to know. I just didn't want to deal with an awkward goodbye._

 _We got in my car and I asked G. what hotel he was staying at. He told me and I said, "That is a nice hotel."_

 _"I was hoping you'd approve."_

 _"What would you have done if I hadn't taken you back? Or if we stayed in my room instead?"_

 _"Cried myself to sleep in the first situation. Written it off on my taxes either way."_

 _"Good to hear you've become more financially practical."_

 _"Yeah, I'm real practical, managing an obscure band."_

 _"Hey, at least you're doing what you love."_

 _"Yeah, I am. Well, one of the things I love."_

 _I kissed him. "Come on, let's go look at that great view of the Bay."_

 _..._

 _What can I say about the sex? Even on an anonymous blog. Well, I'll be a lady (for a change?) and just say that it was as AMAZING as it used to be. You know from my earlier posts that I would sometimes wonder if maybe I'd idealized it, and him, and it wasn't as incredible as I thought it was looking back through the lens of celibacy. But then I would wonder if maybe it, and he, was, were._

 _OK, some of it that night was just from being horny and some of it was sheer joy at being with him again. But I could tell that some of it was that it was the best sex ever. Not just because he's great in bed but because it was making love as well as fucking, and I haven't had much of that combination in my life. The last one before G. was the guy I gave up my future for. And he wasn't as good in bed anyway._

 _"Wow," G. murmured afterwards, when we were both lying back on the very nice hotel bed. That makes it sound like he said it flatly, but it was more like he was stunned. I know, because that's how it felt for me. Plus he had the "stunned G." face on. God, I'd missed that! Along with a lot of other parts of his body of course._

 _"I know," I murmured back._

 _"God, I've missed you! I mean not just the sex."  
"I really missed the sex. And you."_

 _He laughed. "Well, good. That's very symbiotic."_

 _"Yes." We kissed and then I said, "Not many guys could pull the word 'symbiotic' out of their asses post-coitally."_

 _"Well, not all girls could pull the word 'post-coitally' out of theirs, post-coitally.' "_

 _"My ass is a Dr. Whovian treasure chest."_

 _"As is mine."_

 _Then we laughed and kissed for awhile._

 _He said, "Turn that ass to face me." He blinked. "Not that it looks like a face."_

 _"As long as my face doesn't look like an ass."_

 _"They're both beautiful, your face and your ass."_

 _"But you'd rather look at my ass right now."_

 _"Well, I want to spoon you."_

 _"I'd like that," I said. So I turned my back on him and he snuggled up against me._

 _"I've missed this, too."_

 _"So have I." We weren't joking anymore._

 _"So, E., how are we going to make this work?"_

 _I almost said, "Spooning?" but instead I said, "Well, you live in L.A. right now."_

 _"The City of Angels."_

 _"Yes. And I'm in the City by the Bay."_

 _"Right. So it's going to be faster and cheaper visiting back and forth than when I was in New York."  
"The City That Never Sleeps."_

 _"But they're still a few hours apart."_

 _"Well, we could move to a compromise city."  
"What? San Luis Obispo?"  
"SLO. SLO Lane. SLO Hand. SLO Children Playing."_

 _He ignored this._ _"So we'd each have a long commute?"_

 _"I don't know, G. I'm just throwing it out as a possibility."_

 _"Maybe you could get a newspaper job in L.A."_

 _"But I don't want to live in L.A. I liked New York and I could picture living with you there if I'd found work but-"_

 _"OK, let's not go through all that again."_

 _"OK."  
We were quiet for awhile and then he said, "I'm sorry. It's just I'm so happy to be with you again, and I want more of this."_

 _"I know. I do, too." I sighed._

 _"Well, you know everything is gradually moving more online, so maybe in five or ten years, there won't be as much physical space. We'll live our lives in cyberspace."_

 _"But I like the physical world," I said, stroking his arm that was around my stomach, enjoying the heat of his stomach and chest against my back, and his crotch against my butt._

 _"Yeah, me, too. I mean, I thought about that, that we could try to have more of an online relationship, but it's not enough."  
"I know."  
"But I meant with our jobs. Maybe someday you can do more online journalism."  
"But a lot of my stories are 'local color.' "_

 _"True."_

 _"And how could you manage the band remotely? I mean, you need to hear them live, you need to interact with them face to face."_

 _"Yeah, well. Damn us for having jobs with the human element!"_

 _I laughed and then sighed. "Yeah, damn us."_

 _"Anyway, I guess we should just be glad that we can see each other more than before. And who knows what the future will bring?"_

 _"Yeah. And this is all character-building, right?"_

 _"Sure. I hope so anyway. Although I'd like less learning and more of you."_

 _"I know."_

 _I thought about my blog, how when I thought that it was over for good with G., I tried to learn from the experience. I'd rather have had him, even if losing him made me grow up a little. (OK, I still live with my sister and her family, but maybe G. and I could rent a little weekend getaway. Like a studio apartment in SLO.)_

 _What happens now that I seem to have him again? It's still going to be an LDR, just a shorter LDR. So I guess I'll learn from that. And maybe someday I'll get to write what it's like to live with my best friend, whom I'll still love after all those years._

 _I ended up staying till it was time to take him to the airport on Sunday. G. made sure I didn't need any underwear on Saturday. Room service was good and the view of the Bay was stunning._

 ** _..._**

 ** _Loved this post. I guess I should go back and read the earlier ones. -Boxing Manager_**


End file.
